NASA announced a suite of awards and mission updates on Saturday to expand the agency’s Moon Base exploration, science, and infrastructure capabilities. The investments will advance commercial robotic deliveries, a nuclear-powered rover named PROMISE, launch and orbital transfer services, and surfac
South Korea’s Ministry of Science and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) approved a 1.48 trillion won fusion energy R&D program running from 2027 to 2036. The initiative will advance fusion technologies and establish demonstration infrastructure to support commercialization. The post Ko
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City lights from the Midwestern United States to the East Coast sparkle across the landscape a couple of hours before sunrise on Oct. 18, 2026. Major urban areas visible in the photograph include Chicago, Illinois; Detroit, Michigan; and the New York metropolitan region. The International Space Stat
NASA successfully demonstrated technology designed to help spacecraft autonomously navigate to safe landing sites on the Moon and on other planets. An Alta-X drone equipped with the agency’s Safe and Precise Landing – Integrated Capabilities Evolution (SPLICE) guidance, navigation, and control paylo
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The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science announced $8.5 million in FY2026 funding selections for 28 projects through the Innovation Network for Fusion Energy (INFUSE) program, connecting 22 commercial enterprises with national laboratories and universities to accelerate commercial fusion en
Students across the country will have the opportunity to connect directly with the International Space Station during a live, interactive in-flight call with NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Mark Rober STEM content creator and founder of ClassCrunchLabs Foundation. The event, hosted by NASA’s Office of
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From a nuclear revival to qubits, the MIT Energy Initiative’s annual research conference tracked deployment of today’s technologies to discovery of tomorrow’s breakthroughs.
Meteor Showers, a Spacecraft Milestone, and a Supermoon Catch Taurid and Leonid meteors, spot Mars near Jupiter, celebrate Voyager 1’s light-day milestone, and watch November’s supermoon. Skywatching Highlights Transcript A month of meteor showers … a close pairing of Mars and Jupiter … and a superm
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U.S. National Science Foundation-supported researcher Jonathan Zuegel discusses the future of high-powered laser research in the United States, the ambitious NSF Optical Parametric Amplifier Line (NSF OPAL) laser facility. NSF OPAL is designed to…
Pranos Fusion aims to finalize designs for its larger PRANIK tokamak in 2027, building on its PRAGYA research machine. The company highlights high-temperature superconducting magnets and India's manufacturing capabilities as key to reducing costs and advancing domestic fusion development. The post I
Researchers at the National Ignition Facility developed an improved simulation model, addressing discrepancies between predicted and measured energy transfer in inertial confinement fusion experiments. The approach improves the accuracy of ignition predictions and supports optimization of experiment
Twin Travelers In 1977, NASA launched twin spacecraft Voyager 1 and 2, taking advantage of a once-every-175-year planetary alignment of the four largest planets in our solar system: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Using six gravity assists between them, this Grand Tour gave us up-close views o
Although no ghouls, goblins, or trick-or-treaters come knocking at the International Space Station’s front hatch, crew members aboard the orbiting laboratory still like to get in the Halloween spirit. Whether individually or as an entire crew, they dress up in sometimes spooky, sometimes scary, but
The emeritus NASA astronaut and retired Navy captain will be responsible for the strategic leadership, stewardship, and continuous improvement of laboratory operations.
NASA’s Artemis III SLS (Space Launch System) core stage is integrated alongside the twin solid rocket boosters on Oct. 28 inside the Vehicle Assembly Building’s High Bay 3 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Technicians lifted the 212-foot rocket stage from the facility’s High Bay 2 using a o
Japan and Germany are strengthening cooperation on fusion energy, with Kyoto Fusioneering partnering with Siemens Energy, Mitsui & Co., and Proxima Fusion to develop key technologies for fusion power generation. The collaborations aim to accelerate commercialization and support plans for a fusion po
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NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory has found a large object that scientists have identified as a possible dwarf planet. A preliminary data analysis shows that the object is orbiting in the outer reaches of the solar system beyond Pluto and may be one…
Japan’s Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yusuke Nakanishi reaffirmed government support for private-sector fusion commercialization during a meeting with FIA at the Prime Minister’s office, highlighting Japan’s goal of demonstrating fusion electricity generation in the 2030s. The post Deputy Chief Cab
The NASA STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Enhancement in Earth Science (SEES) Internship Program at the University of Texas Center for Space Research places high school students on small, mission-focused research teams mentored by NASA, academic, and industry experts. During
Teams at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi tested RS-25 engine No. 10001 on Oct. 21, 2026. The hot fire test lasted for almost eight-and-a-half minutes (500 seconds), the same amount of time RS-25 engines fire during launch of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, with a
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On Monday, Brookhaven National Laboratory debuted a superconducting chip designed to help monitor fusion plasma in real time. The lab developed it with other U.S. Department of Energy facilities and the AI hardware start-up Great Sky. The post A superconducting ‘brain’ chip races to keep up with fus
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The Mobile Satellite Services Association (MSSA) is the newest Market Representation Partner (MRP) of 3GPP, a decision approved during the project’s Organizational Partner meeting (OP#56) on October 22, 2026.
From orbit, today’s space-based laser instruments measure Earth’s forests and terrain one narrow line at a time. Between those lines are enormous gaps that include millions of acres of land scientists never directly measure. NASA’s CASALS instrument will blend machine learning with an ultra-compact
U.S. National Science Foundation-supported researcher Louise Willingale discusses the most powerful laser in the United States, the NSF Zettawatt Equivalent Ultrashort Pulse Laser System, how it's being used to advance science, and how it will become…
As NASA works to build the Moon Base, crewed and robotic lunar rovers will play a crucial role during early development through technology demonstrations, astronaut transport, terrain mapping, scientific investigations, and resource prospecting. Data from these early missions will inform future mobi
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Rockets vibrate, shake, and flex intensely as they climb into space, and spacecraft packed with delicate scientific instruments must survive those forces. Before any rocket leaves the ground, NASA engineers work to predict how those stresses will affect every part of a spacecraft. To do that, engine
As the supercooled propellant flowed into the core stage, and NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket roared to life, Allison Mjoen and her family watched with awe and pride. Mjoen, NASA’s operations manager for the agency’s Exploration Ground Systems Program, helped shape the systems and ground ope
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UK Atomic Energy Authority CEO Dennis Whyte highlighted growing competition between China and Western nations to commercialize fusion energy, citing China's rapid development of fusion technology and supply chains. He emphasized advances in superconducting magnets, AI, and research as key to acceler
NASA’s Artemis II mission sent four astronauts around the Moon and brought them safely back to Earth, laying a foundation for crewed flights to the Moon’s surface. Additional engineering data analysis of the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield confirmed initial data showing the heat shield performed as e
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UK Fusion Energy reported progress on the STEP Fusion programme at West Burton, highlighting its role in strengthening UK manufacturing and supply chains. The programme worked with 371 UK suppliers in 2025/26, with 80% of spending retained domestically, as development advances on the UK's prototype
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Sunlight illuminates the exhaust plumes of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company’s Dragon spacecraft on Oct. 13, 2026. This visual phenomenon is known as a “jellyfish”; it happens near sunrise or sunset when the exhaust plume from the rocket becomes brightly illuminated, creating a glowing s
Open models and llm-d enabled IBM Research to explore quantum error correction hardware at 11.5× lower inference cost than an all-proprietary configuration.
Description A lunar lander from Voyager Technologies completed nearly three months of environmental testing at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California in late September 2026. The tests demonstrate that the spacecraft is prepared to face the harsh conditions of launch, its journey to
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Shaken, spun, baked, and blasted, the Griffin-1 spacecraft was put through weeks of tests to show it can survive the conditions of launch through lunar landing.
NASA experiments focused on human and plant health and drug-resistant organisms will travel to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX’s 35th Commercial Resupply Services mission for the agency from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, advancing research that benefits life on Earth a
NASA is testing heat shields that can keep astronauts safe as they return from missions to the Moon and Mars in an unusual way: by taking out the trash. When Northrop Grumman 24th cargo resupply mission for NASA undocked from the International Space Station, it carried a fleet of 12 small, experimen
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Germany is pressing ahead with the development of fusion power plants. This week, as part of Germany’s High-Tech Agenda, the Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation (SPRIND) launched a new milestone-based fusion program to accelerate private-sector fusion commercialization. The program will provide
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The SpaceX Crew Dragon Freedom spacecraft is seen moments before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California in this Oct. 8, 2026, photograph. Aboard were NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 members NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sophie Ad
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ESA’s Themis reusable rocket stage demonstrator successfully completed its second ‘wet dress rehearsal’ at Esrange Space Center in Sweden on 29 September, testing the vehicle and ground procedures under representative cryogenic conditions.
A visualization of a dark Moon eclipsing the Sun is marked with handwritten notes in this April 6, 2026, screenshot from an Artemis II crew member’s tablet. NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman (in blue) and Victor “Ike” Glover (in green) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) Jeremy Hansen (in red) observed impac
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Type One Energy raised $200 million in Series B funding to advance Project Infinity and its stellarator fusion technology. The funding will support development of the Infinity One prototype machine and the company’s path toward commercial deployment. The post Type One Energy raised $200M to build a
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A research aircraft chased a sub-orbital rocket launch in Sweden to see how space agencies can better monitor and understand emissions in our atmosphere.
As an astronaut traverses the lunar South Pole, tribocharging from walking on the lunar surface and plasma charging from the ambient plasma generate electric charge on the spacesuit. This problem is severely compounded when entering lunar shadows and Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSRs). In these dar
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 mission is ending, with the crew scheduled to return in early October. NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev will head home from the International Space Station after supportin
Four crew members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-13 mission launched at 11:10 a.m. EDT Thursday from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida for a science expedition aboard the International Space Station. “Crew-13 is another demonstration of America’s unmatched capability in
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Annual funding opportunity advances the Trump Administration’s priorities across Basic Energy Sciences, Fusion Energy Sciences, Nuclear Physics, and more.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems has signed a supply agreement with Tokyo-based Fujikura Ltd to buy 10,000km (6,213.7 miles) of high-temperature superconducting tape for use in its planned fusion power plant. The post Commonwealth Fusion inks deal for over 6,200 miles of high-tech tape critical to operat
Helical Fusion expects to begin preliminary power-on tests at its demonstration fusion machine in 2027, it said on Tuesday. The company is developing Helix HARUKA, its integrated pilot machine using the helical approach to fusion. The post Japan’s fusion energy startup to begin power-on tests at pi
On 23 September, Italy’s Senate passed legislation establishing a framework for the development of nuclear fission and fusion energy in the country. The post Italy Passes Legislation in Support of Nuclear Fission and Fusion Energy appeared first on Fusion Industry Association .
Korean fusion startup EnableFusion has completed a Series A funding round worth 45 billion won. The company plans to expand its business scope beyond precision manufacturing, which supplies core equipment for international fusion projects, to include artificial intelligence, high-temperature superco
Spacecraft propulsion traditionally relies on volatile fuels and separate, bulky systems for different types of maneuvering in space. NASA is working to change that paradigm. Engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, recently completed a rigorous series of environmenta
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Image: Like a climber, selecting and adjusting its grip on the next hold and slowly moving across a rockface, the robot seen here crawls across a dark laboratory clutching onto pieces of equipment to steadily build a structure underneath itself, piece by piece. Crawling through the growing frame wit
This week, Italy’s Parliament approved a bill on sustainable nuclear power, giving the Government authority to define the regulatory frameworks for nuclear fission and fusion energy. The frameworks will cover the full lifecycle of facilities and includes plans for a National Program for Nuclear Prod
During NASA’s SpaceX Crew‑13 mission aboard the International Space Station, astronauts will support a series of biomedical and human performance investigations, including a new collaborative effort to study how spaceflight affects blood flow and clotting. NASA also is testing crew members’ manual p
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Currently, space missions are one-shot affairs: satellites are sent to orbit to do their mission until they run out of fuel. The European Space Agency is working on a more sustainable future where satellites and spacecraft can rendezvous, dock, refuel, repair, recalibrate and even be repurposed for
The Department of Energy in coordination with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory completed shipment of more than 4,700 pounds of a rare salt used in molten salt reactors to Natura Resources.
The U.S. National Science Foundation today announced an initiative to translate low-dimensional semiconductor technologies from laboratory demonstrations into platforms for U.S. manufacturers to develop and deploy advanced microelectronics. The NSF…
Video: 00:03:09 The Meteosat Third Generation -Imager2 (MTG-I2) satellite was launched on an Ariane 6 from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, this timelapse video shows the process of getting the satellite ready for liftoff up to its launch into space on 27 August 2026 at 22:11 CEST (17:11 local t
Westinghouse Electric Company reached a key milestone earlier this month when it successfully completed criticality testing for its eVinci microreactor.
Proxima Fusion and the State of Lower Saxony signed an agreement to develop Europe’s first large-scale production facility for fusion-grade high-temperature superconducting (HTS) tape. The project is expected to receive around €140 million through 2029, supporting Proxima’s technology while expandin
The European Space Agency’s FLEX Earth Explorer satellite and the Copernicus Sentinel-3C satellite have been launched together aboard a Vega-C rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, marking a new milestone in Europe’s Earth Observation Programmes.
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Two Earth observation satellites – ESA’s Fluorescence Explorer (FLEX) satellite, and the third satellite for the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission – are encapsulated inside the nose cone of a Vega-C launcher and are awaiting liftoff at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.
The multi-modal model could help astronauts navigate craters, investigate ancient lava, and search for ice, as the US plans for a long-term lunar presence.
On 9 September, Fusion Industry Association UK Director Tris Denton gave evidence to Parliament’s Energy Security and Net Zero (ESNZ) Select Committee as part of its inquiry into the National Policy Statement for fusion energy generation (NPS EN-8). The post FIA Gives Evidence to UK Parliament on Na
The European Space Agency’s FLEX satellite and the Copernicus Sentinel-3C satellite are scheduled to launch together aboard a Vega-C rocket on 15 September at 03:21 CEST (14 September at 22:21 local time). Watch the VV30 launch live from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, with coverage starting at
Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois completed a 14-year campaign to help inform the safety features of new advanced reactor designs.
Video: 00:04:00 German company Isar Aerospace successfully reached orbit with their Spectrum launcher, lifting off from Andøya Spaceport in Norway at 21:12 BST/22:12 CEST on 5 September 2026. Spectrum is a two-stage, 28 m tall launch vehicle and, with its ten engines, is targeting to launch pa
Video: 00:47:00 On 4 September 2026, media representatives joined an online briefing ahead of the launch of ESA’s FLEX and the Copernicus Sentinel-3C satellites. The two satellites are scheduled to launch together aboard a Vega-C rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 15 September at 03:
High-speed, independent qubit reset boosts circuit throughput 25x over Heron while enabling accurate observable estimation on circuits with 7,500+ gates.
The spacecraft will study the mysteries of the cosmos while also testing the Coronagraph Instrument, designed and built by JPL to demonstrate advanced hardware for studying planets around other stars.
Deep Space Station 23 at NASA’s Goldstone facility in the California desert is the latest next-generation antenna to be added by the network’s enhancement project.
Our everyday life is flooded with photons, the quantum building blocks of light. For cutting-edge technology, from quantum computing to deep-tissue imaging, detecting every single photon counts. “Photons carry information,” said Kristen Parzuchowski
Engineers from the European Space Agency (ESA) and industry partners have completed an intensive concept study for Phoenix 3, a reusable spacecraft designed to fly experiments in microgravity and return them safely to Earth.
Quantum advantage is here. The next question is where to apply it. New updates from the Quantum Optimization Working Group offer a glimpse at the path ahead.
3GPP creates specifications at the cutting edge of modern communications technology – but how “cutting-edge” are the technology and processes that 3GPP itself uses to create those specifications? In June 2025, a cross-3GPP Study Item was launched to review 3GPP’s specification formats and working me